


help him

by writing_words



Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Character Death, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I cried writing this, M/M, Sad Ending, This Is Sad, emotional ?, i can't sleep and i need to cry so i wrote this, i'M SAD, just plain sad, nothing happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 05:03:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21156053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_words/pseuds/writing_words
Summary: the losers can't get richie to leave him





	help him

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sad. and sorry.

'He's alright, no he's just hurt, we gotta get him out of here.' Richie looks up, wide eyed and hopeful. His friends are blurry, and maybe it's the blood or the sweat or the cracked glasses. But they all seem pained. There's a rumbling in the room that's shaking everything, the floor, the walls, Richie's hands and stomach and thought process, and he can't seem to catch anyone's eyes. 

'He's hurt. Ben.' Richie wishes his friends were more responsive; Ben could help him carry Eddie. 

Someone starts to say something, and their tone is apologetic, and Richie cuts them off. 'No, he's okay!' He meets Bev's stare, finally, and she's looking at him like he's the one wounded, like he's the one with a fucking claw that's ripped through his chest. He sure as hell feels like it. 'We gotta get him out of here, Bev.' 

He looks back down to Eddie. Eddie isn't responding simply because of the shock of it all, he's staring blankly ahead. Richie grabs his hand and squeezes once, twice, before he hears Bev's broken voice, a siren in the storm. 

'Richie.'

He looks up, and the rumbling is getting louder, and his chest is collapsing. 'What?'

'Honey,' she chokes. 'Honey, he's dead.'

Richie grips Eddie's hand tighter, looks at it through his blurry vision, and feels he's squeezing his own neck. the pressure builds up and up and up and he can hear Bev saying something. He can hear the warning in her tone, and Bill joins in, and the Losers are at his shoulders, pulling him away. 

Away from Eddie.

Richie grabs his friend, his best friend, his childhood forever, and pulls him forward, wraps him up in a hug like he can push his broken skin back together. 'We can still help him!' Richie worries the words get lost, or maybe he doesn't even say them out loud, because he gets no response. 'We can still help him, guys!'

Richie hears someone in his ear say, 'Let him go, man,' and a sob rips through him. 

'No, guys, we can still help him!'

He's pulled away from Eddie, who falls back, still unresponsive. Richie can feel Bill pushing on his shoulder and rubbing his back simultaneously, urging him to keep moving. 

They don't get very far. Richie tugs away from the grasp of his friends, and they're too weak to restrain him when he won't stop fighting. He turns to stare at them, eyes wide and helpless. 'We can't leave him!'

'Richie, please,' Bev pleads, misery mingling with the blood on her face. She reaches a hand out like she needs to grab him and pull him and keep him close, and Richie feels it in his chest. He feels everything in his collapsing chest as he faces off his best friends. 'Please.' The second time hurts more. 

'I can't leave him,' Richie says finally, and Ben is the first to understand. He moves forward, like he's going to grab Richie, but stops himself. He wouldn't let go if he made it all the way. Bill gets it a moment later, and his face contorts into something devastating. 

'Richie, no,' Bev tries as she gets it, pushing forward, but she is quickly restrained by Bill's arm around her waist. If Bev makes it to Richie, they'll all stay, and Richie shoots Bill an appreciative look. Mike is crying, looking around anxiously.

'I can't leave him,' Richie repeats, taking a step back, and Ben touches a hand to Bev's shoulder and Mike voices his concerns, they need to move now. And Bev screams, but she lets herself be guided out by Ben. Richie watches them, and sends Bev a smile before she disappears, and he hopes it says everything he couldn't. 

He returns to Eddie as soon as they're gone. Everything is shaking and falling apart around him, and Richie sits by Eddie and grabs his hand again. 

'I'm not gonna leave you alone down here,' he says, running his thumb across Eddie's knuckles. They're caked in the fluids of the sewers and his own blood, and Richie uses the hem of his shirt to try and wipe it away. 'I dunno why you ever gave up wearing a fanny pack. If we were thirteen you'd have the materials to deal with this shit. Plus, you were always so cute when you wore it.' His hand twitches with familiarity, straining to pinch Eddie's cheeks. A habit. 

Richie's shoulders sag with the memory of the world he lived in without Eddie. How miserable. How unbearable. Looking at Eddie now, at their hands intertwined, he knows he never truly forgot him. He remembered him in every washing of hands, in the old mixtapes he occasionally listened to for nostalgia. Eddie was ever present in the horrible nicknames Richie gave his colleagues in LA (he couldn't call them _friends_ now, that was weird). When he did a double take at every man in a pastel polo shirt, and when he went to sleep at night feeling lonely, lonely, lonely, 

'It's always been you,' Richie says aloud, and he can't look at Eddie's face. 'Fuck, Eddie, it's always been you. I can't-why is this-' Richie starts crying, loud and unattractive sobs that seem to echo against the collapsing walls. He wipes his nose on his sleeve and struggles to breathe. 'I never forgot you, Eddie. And I never will.'

He can picture his friends making their way to safety. He doesn't want to think about how any of his friends might be crying like him, feeling like him. He can't imagine this pain for his friends. They'll be safe, though, and that's what counts now. Bev will be safe with Ben and Mike will get the hell out of Derry and Bill will go back to his world and finish his story. He'll find a better ending. 

Richie looks at Eddie, looks at him, at his glassy eyes and his bloodied lips. 'Oh god, Eddie. I'm, I'm so sorry, man, I'm so sorry.' He pulls his friend into a hug again, clinging to him, and it saves him, a little, the hug. They're at the epicenter of the collapse, Richie tells himself, they'll be the last to go. He's so sorry about it all. It's okay.

'You and me,' he whispers, but it's not a whisper. It seems to ring out int he air, piercing through everything, a truth. 'You and me. Forever. Like it should be.' His memory flickers, that strange _and don't forget_ sensation that has been rushing through him since he got Mike's call. 'The Kissing Bridge!'

He gasps the words, the memory flooding back to him, and tilts Eddie to look at his face. He clings to his friend and his useless hope. 'I carved our initials into the Kissing Bridge that summer, Eddie! Me! Because I'm a gay disaster and I couldn't say it out loud! It'll be there! You and me on that bridge. Forever, understand?'

He's shouting now. Eddie's head lolls to the side, and Richie sobs again, it tugs at everything in him. This is it. 'I won't leave you again!' He won't leave Eddie by himself in this miserable rotting shit bucket; no, that would be too much. He hauls Eddie's body forward and cradles him in his lap, pushing his damp, matted hair from his forehead repeatedly. 

'Just,' Richie tries, fails, tries again, 'Just meet me there, Eds. Please. Just meet me, okay? Wherever we go. Look, I called you Eds. You gotta meet me and tell me to fuck off!'

Richie sags, closes his eyes, hopeless. He presses his lips to Eddie's forehead, and it's not enough, it's not enough, and he screams for a second against the collapsing sewers. He swears against the gods and the universe and whatever is beyond it. He raises his middle finger to the sky and feels some warmth, some understanding that his friends are safe. He drops his hand and catches Eddie's, holds them both tightly and runs his fingers across the palms. He cradles his dead best friend to his chest and screams that he's okay, that their friends are okay, that they've made it this far and fuck this as a prize, fuck this existence of missing what you couldn't remember. Richie cradles his dead best friend to his chest and loves him with everything he has left. 

It's enough.

_ **fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> anyway, don't forget to like and subsc


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